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Tomb Raider Review: Part 2 - The Gameplay

In the second part of our Tomb Raider Review, we look at the Gameplay. This includes the combat, how you get around and quest's in the game.
Ahh the combat in Tomb Raider. When you are first introduced to the island of Yamatai you have no weapons, and nothing to go kill stuff with. Soon you find a bow and some arrows (that are closely associated with the previous Tomb Raider games and films before this reboot). Gradually as you are dropped in more and more to the world, you find yourself new weapons. Whether it be a shotgun, a rifle, and pistol or an axe all are brilliant to play with, brilliant to have fun with and great to experiment with.

Source: pcgamer.com

Despite the wide choice of weaponry available, the main focus seems to be with the bow, which receives the option to send out flaming arrows among other upgrades. Personally, this was my weapon of choice as the ammo seemed the most widely available throughout the levels, although you can easily fast travel back via a campfire to a previous zone and pick up the re-spawned ammunition that is waiting for you there.

Getting around is simple in Tomb Raider. Either you walk, run or move from campfire to campfire via a fast travel system quite like that in Dark Souls. Although there is no direct need to go back anywhere, if you want to 100% the game (as I hope to eventually do) then it can be useful when looking for hidden tombs that may have escaped your notice.

While there aren't specific quests, there is a mission structure that I really like. In each "zone" of the semi-open-world you have checkpoints that you have to reach. Getting to each of these acts as the mission. Sometimes you will have to retrieve something, or explore somewhere or simply get from point A to point B without getting killed. It's a good system, but perhaps wouldn't work in any other game, not that this is a bad thing.

To help you know where to go, you can use Lara's "survival instincts" which light up objects you can use to help in your task or project a beam of light into a certain place, showing you your goal.

The combat is fun as is getting around and the quests are the cherry on the cake.